Horizon
by VR Trakowski
Summary: Postep for Living Dolls. GSR
1. Chapter 1

**Most of the characters and situations in this story belong to Alliance Atlantis, CBS, Anthony Zuicker and other entities, and I do not have permission to borrow them. No infringement is intended in any way, and this story is not for profit. All other characters are my invention, and if you want to mess with them, you have to ask me first. Any errors are mine, all mine, no you can't have any.**

**Spoilers: through "Living Doll"**

**I'm pulling a Tom Daniels (see below) with this one. Please note that I have not read any post-ep fic as yet, so if someone else has come up with this idea, I don't know about it! Many thanks as ever to that gem of betas, Cincoflex, who is being very patient with me and my muse, and a tip of the hat to Ligaras, who was enthusiastic and made me feel better. (grin)**

**(Truly obscure reference. Don't worry about it.)**

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

_**Did you know that the '62 Caddy has more trunk space than any car made in the last thirty years?**_

_**--Det. Nick Night**_

_**  
**_

**xxx**

She still didn't know why the girl had spoken her name.

On reflection, Sara thought dizzily, it would have been easier for her assailant to merely fire without catching Sara's attention first; as it was, Sara had almost managed to dodge the Taser wires.

But not quite.

She'd never felt pain like that before, but what was worse was the utter helplessness, the slow collapse of her muscles; the calm, satisfied look in the girl's eyes. Sara's perspective had tilted as the paralysis downed her, but those eyes…

And then the deliberate steps forward, and the faint pop of a cap coming off a syringe, and the screaming fear burning in the back of Sara's throat; all washed away by the invading prick of the needle and the inexorable sleep that followed.

It was the nightmare of Nick's kidnapping all over again, except this time she was living it from the inside. Sara woke up in a hard dark space, her hands taped behind her and the roar of an engine in her ears. It didn't take her long to realize that she was in the trunk of a car.

The drug, whatever it was, had left a foul taste in her mouth and a lingering haze in her head, and the Taser shock had cramped muscles she didn't even know she had. But adrenaline was a good counter to some of that, and Sara squirmed and struggled, trying to find the emergency trunk pull by feel.

However, her efforts produced only two things--the knowledge that her feet were bound as well, and the sinking feeling that the car was too old to have a trunk pull. It certainly wasn't her Prius; far too much room and totally dark.

_And stinking of exhaust and metal._ Sara lay still, trying to figure out who had taken her and why. There were no good answers.

She bit back panic. _You aren't hurt yet, and they may make a mistake._ She tried to ignore the dismal statistics about abduction victims. If the girl was working alone, Sara might stand a better chance, but she had to assume there were more people involved. Sara chewed her lip in the dark.

_We got Nick back,_ she reminded herself. _And this time the whole team will be together._

If, whispered a small dark voice, they even notice. She'd been attacked at her own car, on her way out of the garage. First someone would have to realize that she had even vanished.

_And it's not like I left any evidence at the scene._ In fact, if she remembered correctly, it would look as though she had just walked away from her own car, unless her attacker had done something to it.

_Shit. I'm in deep on this one._

The fumes were making her nauseated, and Sara tried to breathe shallowly, not wanting to be sick in the enclosed space. The image of Grissom rose in her mind's eye, and she gulped, pushing it back. She couldn't afford to think about him just then, couldn't afford the emotion or the thought of what this would do to him.

Controlling her gag reflex took up most of her attention after that, though Sara tried to listen to the sound of the tires in a vague hope of learning where they were going. But the lack of oxygen and the residue of the drug made her sleepy, and she slipped into a sort of daze, staring into the dark and trying not to remember the video feed of Nick's coffin, or the aftermaths of all the lonely murders she'd ever processed.

The sudden bump and halt of the car snapped her out of it, and Sara tensed, waiting for something to happen. The engine shut off, and she strained her ears, but either they were numbed by the long roar or there was nothing to hear.

After a moment came the thump and shudder of the car door opening and closing, and then a mechanical whine, like a piece of machinery. Scraping noises. Another whine.

Finally the hood popped open, and Sara blinked rapidly at the influx of light, little as it was. Filling her lungs with blessedly fresh air, she yelled at the top of them. _"HELP!"_

Her abductor--who didn't look at all physically imposing--flinched, but didn't seem alarmed. Sara kept screaming. "Help, somebody help me _please!_ Call the police! Help--"

She had to stop to gasp, and realized as she did so that there was no sound--no response, no voices, no noises at all. Her next shout turned to dust in her mouth.

"Get up," the young woman said, her voice hardly more than a whisper.

She held no weapon, but there didn't seem any point in lying still. Sara levered herself up stiffly into a sitting position, nearly hitting her head on the trunk lid, and saw immediately why the girl hadn't worried about her scream. There was nothing around them but open desert, punctuated by a few scrubby plants.

"What do you want?" Sara asked desperately, pretty certain she wasn't going to like the answer but compelled to ask all the same. "Look, this is not smart--I'm a member of the LVPD, and they're going to have the entire force out looking for me--"

"Out," the girl said in the same soft tone, her eyes darting to Sara's face and away again, and something in them chilled Sara's blood. The cold was an atavistic reaction, instinctive, and brought with it a surge of despair.

This woman was insane.

Sara swallowed. "I, uh, I can't get out with my feet taped."

The girl's left eye twitched, but she evinced no other reaction. Slowly she reached into her jacket pocket and took out a pair of scissors, and bent down to cut through the tape.

As soon as Sara felt the binding give, she shifted her weight, trying to swing her legs up at her abductor's head. But her cramped muscles betrayed her, and the young woman merely stepped back without alarm. "Out," she repeated, staring over Sara's left shoulder.

With her hands taped, and without help, Sara didn't so much as climb out of the trunk as fall out of it, landing heavily on her side on the sandy ground. She bit back an oath, wavering between fear and anger; her nervous system was obviously still jangled from the Taser. It took the girl's hand under her elbow to get her to her feet.

Before she could ask any more questions, Sara was being led around the car almost faster than she could stumble. The vehicle was a barge, the CSI portion of her mind noted absently, dating from a time when steel was king. Trying to break away was out of the question until she could get her legs to work better…

There was another car illuminated by the headlights, but this one was a crumpled mess, tilted up on one side in a peculiar pose. Sara squinted at it, trying to figure out how it could have rolled and stopped like that, but the grip on her elbow dragged her into its shadow before her muzzy mind could work it through.

The ground under their feet was chopped up, as though someone had been digging there. In fact, they were standing in a shallow depression, a scooped-out bowl.

_This is weird._ Sara's stomach twisted uneasily as she looked at the dented car looming over her. _Something is seriously wrong with this picture._

She started to turn to look at her captor, but before she swung around, the agonizing jolt hit her again. Sara felt all her muscles spasm; her breathing locked up and her eyes went dim as she tumbled to the ground, but after a moment her lungs jerked back into life and her sight cleared a little.

Unfortunately, nothing else worked. Her cheek was pressed into the churned sand, fortunately not so deeply that the grains could reach her eye, and she could only watch helplessly as the young woman stepped forward with the scissors.

She was humming under her breath, not on key, as she cut Sara's limp arms free of the tape. Sara felt her ankles seized, and she was dragged backwards a foot or so, her vest riding up. As the woman straightened the vest and stretched out Sara's limp arm, another wave of horror washed through the CSI.

_She's __**posing**__ me. Like I'm a doll, or an exhibit. _

And then the clues came together, slowed by the drug but finally linking up. Wendy's passing comment that the Miniature Killer was apparently a woman. The odd angle of the wrecked car.

_But I have nothing to do with Ernie Dell--why me? _

Sara tried to ask, to protest, but all that came out was a moan. Her lips and tongue weren't back under her control yet. Theories pinwheeled rapidly through her brain, pouncing on the one commonality of foster care, but she still couldn't make sense of it. Why had the killer chosen _her?_ Serial killers didn't break their patterns, they couldn't--

_Killer_ being the operative word. Sara fought to move her unresponsive limbs, frantic, knowing what came next, but all she managed to do was jerk them a little. The girl clucked.

"Don't move, you'll mess it up." She bent and meticulously replaced Sara's arm in its original position.

Sara had faced death more often than many people, in her life, and it wasn't something she liked to dwell on, but at that particular moment getting her head blown off with a shotgun seemed infinitely more attractive than being crushed by a car. Which was apparently what the woman had in mind. Sara panted against the sand, straining, but she couldn't even get her toes to wiggle now. Drool ran from the corner of her mouth where her lips were parted. "Nnnggghgh…"

Her abductor was humming again. She vanished from Sara's line of sight, and Sara felt her pulse racing faster and faster. She found herself praying that the car would kill her quickly, that whoever found her wouldn't be nightshift--

--That, whatever else happened--

_Don't let Gil see me afterwards. _

All the wasted time, all the opportunities they were never going to get built up behind her eyes until they spilled over onto her cheeks. _I finally got what I wanted, I was finally happy--for once--please-- _

_I don't want to die now! _

Metal groaned. Sara couldn't tense, but another pulse of adrenaline ran through her. She couldn't see the car above her either, but she knew it was coming.

_Fast, please, do it fast--_

Horror built as she heard the whine of the motor again and the staccato creak of the car. It wasn't toppling over; it was being lowered.

The crush would be slow.

"Agghgh!"

The harsh brightness of the working car's headlights was slowly occluded by the mass of metal tipping down over her. Panic squeezed her throat, and lightning shocks of pain ran through her abused nerves.

Slow as a setting sun, the wreck settled over her, pressing down onto her back and legs, squeezing her into the sand. Weight turned to pain, accenting her terror.

Consciousness vanished, flattened into nothingness.

* * *

.

* * *

He kept swallowing against the lump in his throat, but nothing made it go away. Grissom stood in the observation room, one hand pressed against the glass, as Brass made a go of interrogating Natalie. No bleach was in evidence, but judging from Jim's rigid posture, he wasn't far from making good on his half-serious threat. 

Grissom didn't think it would work, though. Sara's kidnapper was gone into some dark crevice of her own mind, humming and rocking a little in her chair, paying no attention at all to the furious police captain. Grissom suspected that she was in the midst of a psychotic episode; he wasn't sure she was even aware of her surroundings.

_Sara--_

His people were going over the contents of Natalie's home with furious, laser-guided speed, looking for any hint of where she might have taken the missing CSI. Grissom knew that the miniature of the scene awaited him back at the lab, and under any other circumstances he would have flown back to it to tear it apart for clues, but he somehow couldn't bring himself to leave just yet.

He kept hoping desperately that Brass would get through to Natalie.

_Sara!_

Grissom took a deep breath, and another, reaching for control. He couldn't panic, he couldn't break down, no matter how high the pressure built inside his chest. Sara needed him to be calm now, to be the perfect CSI.

She was depending on him.

He did his best to ignore the agonized voice that asked silently what would happen if that weren't enough. He tried to control his galloping pulse, the urge to burst into the interrogation room and shake the vacant-eyed woman until she told him where Sara was.

The one scrap of hope he had was the motor running the miniature. Sara was alive.

She had to be.

Beyond the glass, Brass slammed his hands on the table in frustrated rage; Natalie didn't even flinch.

Turning on his heel, Grissom left.

He never did remember the drive back to the lab. Sara's face hung in the forefront of his mind, the small vulnerable smile that he was pretty sure was only for him, and that was all he saw until he passed through the lab's doors. The place was hushed, voices kept low, and people glanced at him and quickly away as he strode in.

Judy still sat at her desk, her eyes red and a little puffy; she'd already tried to apologize once for letting Natalie into his office. But Grissom hadn't had the time or patience to absolve her, even though it wasn't her fault, and he had no time now either. He went directly to Trace.

"Well?" he snapped as he crossed the threshold, and Hodges' head snapped up from his microscope.

"Nothing new, boss," the tech said, his usual sycophantic manner subdued. "All the samples so far show nothing different than the previous miniatures."

"What about that sand?" There was a chance, just a chance, that the grains glued to the miniature's floor were unique in some way.

Hodges shook his head. "Sorry. It's local, definitely, but it could be from anywhere around here."

Grissom's jaw tightened. "Keep looking," he ordered, and left without hearing Hodges' anxious acknowledgment.

_Sara._

The miniature was now in one of the layout rooms, half-dismantled for samples, and Grissom gathered up his most powerful magnifying glass and a number of other tools.

There were answers. There had to be.

He would find them.

**See Chapter 2**


	2. Chapter 2

**Most of the characters and situations in this story belong to Alliance Atlantis, CBS, Anthony Zuicker and other entities, and I do not have permission to borrow them. No infringement is intended in any way, and this story is not for profit. All other characters are my invention, and if you want to mess with them, you have to ask me first. Any errors are mine, all mine, no you can't have any.**

**Spoilers: through "Living Doll"**

**I'm so glad people are enjoying this--it's been a while since I've posted a chapter fic. Thanks for trusting me! **

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

It was not one of his team who interrupted him, but Brass. The captain rapped sharply on the doorframe, not stopping until Grissom looked up. "Gil."

Grissom pulled off his ALS goggles. "You have news?"

Jim's grim expression did not offer hope. "Not from her. We've got three different shrinks working on her, but she's giving up bupkis."

Grissom cursed softly, fury welling up at his own clumsy handling of Natalie. He thought briefly of the girl's first foster mother. "I broke her, didn't I?"

Jim shrugged. "My opinion? She wasn't stable to begin with. She got what she wanted from you and now she's shut down."

Grissom sighed and set down the ALS. "We don't have a lot of time, Jim. If Sara's even still--"

His throat closed over the word. Jim rubbed tiredly at his face with the palms of both hands. "We've got everybody working on this one--PD, S&R, even the local Feds. The Sheriff doesn't want another PR disaster like Nick's."

"There's twenty-two thousand square miles to search," Grissom said softly. "The odds…"

He trailed off. Without clues, it was blind searching, and only random chance could lead them to the actual scene. They had to have more data.

"Look, everyone's doing everything they can," Jim said. "You know that. Dayshift's been called in to follow up any leads on Davis' actions the past few days, and Sofia's looking over their shoulders to make sure they do it right. All other cases have been put on the backburner."

The fury grew, and burst, and Grissom swatted the goggles off the table with one hand. They flew across the room and bounced off the wall. "It's not _enough,_ dammit!"

Brass let out a breath, and when Grissom looked up he could see the misery in his old friend's eyes. "I know, Gil. I know."

Every fiber in Grissom's body strained to be out searching for Sara. His heart wailed, demanding action, insisting that he give up on the miniature and go out into the dark; that by the time they found something to go on, it would be too late.

Too late.

Grissom gulped in air and braced his hands on the table, closing his eyes until he could exhale calmly. Haste was dangerous; he could overlook something vital. When he opened his eyes, Brass was holding out his goggles.

"We'll find her," Jim said softly. It was as much prayer as promise.

"Yeah." He jammed the goggles back on and switched on the ALS.

It was the only thing he could do.

* * *

.

* * *

Sara woke all at once, remembering with a terrifying clarity exactly where she was and why. Her head was pounding and her ribs were a band of agony, but the panic receded slightly as she realized that she could breathe--not deeply, but she could breathe. 

That was about all she could do, however. The crumpled roof of the car held her pinned precisely in the depression--one hand reaching out from underneath, but all other limbs trapped in a narrow range of movement.

_Shit. _ Sara tried to squirm out of the confinement, moving slowly as every effort sent fresh pain shooting through her head and chest, but there was no place to go. Her shoulders and hips were cradled by metal, pressed against the ground. She couldn't even see her prison--and she couldn't reach the handlight in her vest pocket.

She couldn't even turn her head.

_It's a good thing I'm not claustrophobic. _The grim thought held very little humor, but waking to find herself still alive had been a bonus, at least. Either her captor had made a mistake, which Sara doubted, or she was meant to live.

At least for a while.

Sara took stock of her situation. The ground was hard and cold, but not cold enough to leach too much heat from her body; summer nights in the desert didn't get chilly enough to be dangerous.

Daytime might be a problem, but Sara wasn't sure; the bulk of the car above her might provide enough protection from the heat for her to survive the day. _I won't get much more time than that, though._ Already her mouth was dry; stress and the drug had begun the dehydration process.

Her headache was easing slightly, but her ribs were not. On reflection, though, nothing felt actually splintered; they were probably just cracked. And her spine, much to her relief, seemed intact; she could feel her toes.

_All in all, I'm glad I hit the bathroom right before I left the lab._

The most immediate hazard, Sara judged, would probably be from whatever came to take refuge from the sun once it rose--snakes and scorpions making the top of her list. _However, they aren't likely to attack if I don't move. _

Her only option, it seemed, was to wait. The best team of CSIs in the country--possibly the world--was looking for her. There was no such thing as the perfect murder.

_Gil will find me._ She held onto the thought.

There were so many things she hadn't understood about the enigmatic scientist who'd captured her interest so long ago. They recognized each other on some very basic levels, true, but it wasn't until he'd finally reached out to her that she had learned just how shy and insecure he could be. Not always--and it wasn't as though she didn't have her doubtful moments too--but she came to realize, eventually, what he had always known: that once he let her in, she could destroy him.

She'd made a silent promise to the both of them that she would not. But some things just weren't under her control.

The gates of her mind opened, and memories tumbled out, all the more precious because they were few. The sound of his voice; the gleam in his eye when he grew mischievous; the feel of his sleeping breath against her shoulder; the last time they'd made love, an episode full of slow heat and silly giggles. Their first argument. Their first date.

Their first kiss.

She could have pounced him any number of times, but Sara had been determined to leave it up to him; pushing had got her nowhere in the past and he was a touch old-fashioned to boot. So she had waited, not terribly patiently, and wondered...

And he had caught her off guard after all, leaning in while she was folding a dishcloth and his hands were full of soapsuds. His lips catching hers had been neither tentative nor passionate, but a firm, gentle _rightness_; an acknowledgment and an asking both.

Sometimes she liked to think that he had handed her his heart with that kiss.

_God knows he already had mine._

If she hadn't been able to leave him when he was being distant, his full attention had her helplessly enthralled. Even his month at Williams, and his rather annoying insecurity about supporting Heather, had not lessened her feelings.

Occasionally Sara wondered how someone as deliberately strong and independent as she'd made herself could be so captivated, so captured, by one person. It went against all the strengths she'd tried to instill in herself.

Eventually, she simply had to give up. _Maybe it's just because he's my match. We...fit._

And now, pressed under thousands of pounds of steel and fiberglass, she shivered at the thought of what losing her would do to him.

_He'll break. I know he will. _Her heart cried out at the image, his eyes empty, the spark gone from him. _I love you, but please, Gil, don't give up!_

Her eyes stung in the dark, and Sara sniffed back tears, fighting for control and angry with herself. _You can't afford to lose any moisture. Get a grip._

Sighing, Sara forced herself to relax a little; instinct had her tensing against the roof of the car, as though she could keep the weight from pressing harder. Now she understood why the ground had been disturbed--her captor had made a place for her to lie, rather than squashing her flat.

She held still for a long while, trying not to think about water, or bugs, or the hopelessness of her situation. The desert night wasn't entirely silent, but the sounds were all little or far away; the faint rustle of some small creature passing by, the tiny tick of contracting metal above her, the lonely sound of a coyote. Sara had the sudden horrid thought of a pack of the critters finding her exposed hand, but with some grunting, painful effort she found she could draw it in just enough to get it out of potential tooth reach. The position was uncomfortable, though, so she stretched her arm back out again, idly rubbing at the sand beneath her fingers. _I wonder if I could spell something out._

She snorted at the thought, then started thinking about her location. Obviously it was off the beaten track, but it had to be somewhere that a car could reach, and an ordinary car at that.

There was no more hope to be found in her calculations, however. _I could have been out thirty minutes or three hours in that car. Hell, I don't even know how long I've been under here. And this killer is slick; look how long it's taken for her to make a mistake. Nobody's going to stumble across me. _

_Unless she's planned it that way._

Sara considered the idea, then reluctantly rejected it. It didn't fit, and there were too many variables involved. No, either her friends would figure out where she was, or she would die there.

_Probably the latter._ Leaving her alive was apparently some refinement, but the young woman's goal had always been death. Death and mockery. Maybe that was it; maybe the CSIs were meant to find her too late.

Sara squeezed her eyes shut tightly for a moment, then shuddered and flicked the fingers of her free hand as something multilegged walked over them. And then she froze.

She'd heard something--something that wasn't a howl or a chirp or a slither.

The sound came again, and for a soaring instant she believed it was a helicopter, Search and Rescue flying over the desert with an infrared scanner. Then her hope crumbled to ash as she realized it was thunder.

And from the ash rose fear, and the memory of one of Nick's more bizarre cases.

_How can somebody drown in the desert?_

* * *

.

* * *

"Take a break," Catherine said, leaning one hand on the doorframe. 

Grissom did his best to ignore her, but she strode into the room and snatched away his magnifying glass, ignoring his glare. "Take a damned _break,_ Gil. You've been at this for hours."

"I don't have time for a break," he snapped, making a grab for the tool and missing as Catherine stepped back a pace. _"Sara_ doesn't have time."

"Sara doesn't have time for you to burn out trying to focus your eyes. I've been watching you for five minutes and I don't think you've seen a thing." She put her free hand on her hip and gave him a mother's glare. "Get a cup of coffee and something to eat, and I'll give this back."

Grissom clenched his teeth, but he knew she was right; his vision had started to blur a while ago, and his eyes burned and stung. With ill grace he gave in. "All right. Just a few minutes."

Catherine nodded without triumph, and Grissom saw lines of strain on her face. She and Sara were not friends, but he knew that Catherine would do everything--_was _doing everything--in her not inconsiderable power to find her colleague.

He followed her out of the room and down the quiet corridor. Personnel were still silent, though extra urgency dogged their steps as they went about their tasks; as they passed Layout 2, Grissom saw Greg and Nick bent over supplies taken from Natalie's workroom. Both men looked grim.

The breakroom smelled of Greg's best, and someone had ordered in a deli tray of sandwiches. Grissom filled a cup and would have bypassed the snacks, but Catherine tightened her lips and forced one into his hand before picking up one for herself. "Come on, let's get some fresh air."

Grissom didn't have the mental energy to argue. He let Catherine lead him back towards the front doors, sipping absently at his coffee and thinking over the dismantled miniature waiting for his return. He had found no bleach and no doll, not this time; he was still hoping against hope for some clue as to Sara's specific location.

There were two police officers standing guard at the doors, a perfect example of post-theft barn locking. Catherine ignored them magnificently, sweeping past them with Grissom in tow, and they found a bare spot along the outer wall to lean and eat.

The night was cooler than normal for a late spring in Vegas, with a restless moisture-laden wind that told of rain coming. Grissom squinted at the sky, and felt fresh fear building under his breastbone.

Rain in the desert was rare but copious when it came.

Sara was trapped against the ground.

All the flash-flood victims he'd ever processed surfaced from Grissom's memory, sending ice up his spine.

_Did Natalie take rain into account?_

Grissom dumped his coffee blindly into the bushes and half-ran back inside, leaving Catherine gaping after him.

The first drops of rain spattered the sidewalk.

* * *

.

* * *

By the time the lightning got close, Sara had managed to scrape out a shallow depression under her cheek, by rubbing her head back and forth in its limited scope. Her skin was abraded and probably bleeding, judging from the fiery pain, but at least it was a place for water to go. 

_For a few minutes, anyway._

It was hard to judge the declination of the ground, but she seemed to be in a relatively level spot, with the slight curve of the shoveled-out bowl cradling her body. She didn't know if it would be enough to keep the water from her nose and mouth.

Cloudbursts in the desert generally didn't last long, but they dumped a lot of water in a very short time, and the hard ground could take a while to absorb the moisture. In the meantime, it was sure to run under the car. It was quite possible that she could suffocate in water or sandy mud.

_Look on the bright side, Sidle. There aren't any fire ants here._

The rain began almost as though someone had turned on a huge faucet overhead, going from a few drops to downpour in seconds. The crack of lightning made Sara flinch, and she realized with a new surge of horror that she was currently pinned under a big hunk of metal on what looked to be a fairly flat plain.

_Electrocution may not be pleasant, but it's faster than drowning or dehydration..._ pointed out the sardonic voice in the back of her brain, but that didn't stop her from flinching at each whip of light.

Within minutes, though, the water sliding under the car distracted her. Icy wetness invaded, soaking up through her pants and shirt, and Sara shivered and then hissed with the renewed pain in her ribs. She hadn't really thought about hypothermia, but realized grimly that for one thing, there was nothing she could do about it, and for another, the rain itself was a more pressing worry.

At first it was just a seeping, but as she'd feared the water came in faster than the ground could absorb it. Sara felt the patch under her head become soggy, then splashy, and in a burst of claustrophobic terror pressed her head as hard against the car above her as she could, ignoring the fire around her chest.

Her exposed hand was drenched, the skin almost numb with the water pounding down on it. She scrabbled with both hands for a little more purchase, trying to lever her head further from the growing puddle beneath it, and when her free hand closed over mud, her panic suddenly stilled as a revelation as bright as any lightning strike flashed through her.

It was one of the hardest things she'd ever done, racing against time and her own agony in a space smaller than a coffin. But there was no question of even resting. Sara dug away at the ground with both hands, scraping and burrowing, ignoring the dig of sand and tiny stones under her nails and trying to ignore the fury of her ribs. Moving her free arm back and forth in the softened soil wore it a hollow space, giving her more room to move it; at the same time, she did her best to shift her legs, to slide them as much as possible as though she were trying to create a snow angel.

It was a gamble, she knew; her actions might just bring the car down more firmly and crush her for good. Or, worse yet, crush her halfway.

_But there is--no damned __**way**__--I will just--lie here--and __**wait!**_

The water was rising despite the spaces she was clearing, and soon Sara was sputtering, trying to keep her mouth and nose out of the water as she worked. Frantic, she dug harder, taking a precious moment to pull in her free arm and scrape a little more depth beneath her cheek. She didn't notice when the thunder lessened and the heart of the storm moved off.

She _did_ notice when the car above her creaked.

For a second Sara froze, wondering if she'd just killed herself. But despite the noise, nothing moved, and she took another shallow breath and kept working. The ground was gloppy now, almost liquid itself in places, and both her arms had a lot more movement. Sara had managed to tuck the trapped one further in and work some of the sand out from under her chest, while her free hand kept scraping away at the space between her body and the outside air.

The rain kept pouring down. Every breath she took burned, but Sara refused to slow down, racing the water as it continued to build under the car. Success was slow, but definite; she could feel her torso settling gradually into the space she was making, leaving a tiny, precious gap between her spine and the car roof. Her hips were still pressed against the metal, but if she could just get enough space for her top half...

Her next inhale was half water. Sara choked, coughed, and gasped, cranking her neck around for air and trying desperately to keep breathing against the renewed agony of her ribs. _Can't pass out can'tpassout--_

The spasm finally eased, and she spit sand and realized that it was now or not at all--any longer and she really _would _drown. Dragging in a breath that felt like it was laced with gravel, she held it--and started pushing.

It was a nightmare, panic and anoxia beating at her brain as she struggled to wiggle out from under the car. There really wasn't enough space for her, but she _made _it be enough, dragged herself forward and to her right until her head poked out from under the roof and the rain instantly soaked her. Her spine was kinked at an unnatural angle, her feet were cramping as they shoved for purchase, but she gasped as she lifted her head and took in untainted air.

Slowly, slowly, in what seemed a parody of birth, Sara pulled herself free of the steel trap, squirming through the mud and water until even her boots were free.

For a long time she just lay still, panting shallowly, her head resting on her abraded arms; the rain drumming on her back and soaking her was welcome despite its chill. Eventually, she pushed painfully up to a sitting position, shivering and exhilarated and aching, and tilted her face up to let the drops wash her face and mouth clean.

_I did it._

**See Chapter 3**


	3. Chapter 3

**Most of the characters and situations in this story belong to Alliance Atlantis, CBS, Anthony Zuicker and other entities, and I do not have permission to borrow them. No infringement is intended in any way, and this story is not for profit. All other characters are my invention, and if you want to mess with them, you have to ask me first. Any errors are mine, all mine, no you can't have any.**

**Spoilers: through "Living Doll"**

**Many, many thanks to my patient beta Cincoflex, who has been enthusiastically cheering me on while keeping me on the straight and narrow! Couldn't do it without you, dearest. **

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

It was dark. He preferred it that way.

For many years, Grissom's office had served as his sanctum--almost more so than his home, at times. It was his library, his toolbox, his retreat and his center of power, and the only part of the lab he had complete control over. This door he could lock or unlock, these lights he could turn on or off, these shelves were his to fill or empty.

Right now the door was locked, the blinds were closed, and the lights were off. Grissom could still see shapes moving past the windows beyond, but sounds were muffled and he was wrapped in a protective layer of isolation. His only movement was the thumb of his left hand, rubbing slowly over the worn rosary he held; not counting, not prayer, just the absent, habitual stroke.

On the desk before him, barely visible in the dark, lay an evidence bag. Within it was Sara's cellphone, found lying neatly next to her kit in the back of her Prius. Its tiny window informed him, if he cared to look, that she had four messages.

Three were from him. From before they'd realized.

The phone had already been dusted for fingerprints, of course, but only Sara's had come to light. If Natalie Davis had had an accomplice, either they hadn't touched the phone or had worn gloves. The little device was of no further use, forensically, but it wouldn't be released from evidence until the case was closed or shelved.

Grissom supposed he should turn it off, rather than let the battery run down, but he couldn't find the energy, somehow.

He honestly didn't know what to do. Natalie was still unresponsive, and the shrinks had insisted that she be hospitalized, claiming she was on the brink of catatonia. The Sheriff had ordered that someone remain at her bedside at all times in case she showed any signs of wanting to communicate, but no one was holding out any hope.

They'd found Sara's badge in the trunk of Natalie's car, and a few strands of her hair, but nothing more (_no blood, _his mind whispered,_ no blood at least_); Greg and Warrick had stripped the vehicle almost down to its component atoms, but the tires and the undercarriage turned up only more generic, ubiquitous sand.

Brass and a squad of his officers were waking up towing services all around the city, trying to find one that might have taken the wrecked car to the putative scene, but had struck no gold yet. And, unvoiced yet known, was the fact that there was no guarantee that Natalie had used a legitimate towing service, or a tow truck at all. There were other ways to move a car, and some of them involved friends of friends and payments in cash.

Grissom knew that S&R teams were moving outward from Las Vegas in a slow spiral, that as many choppers as could be spared were in the air. But he also knew just how hopelessly large an area they had to search…and that budgets, and fresh crimes, and the rapidly falling chance that Sara was still alive would eventually bring the efforts to a halt.

And he didn't know what to do.

Grissom had spent years perfecting the art and science of crime scene investigation. He could spot the tiniest clue, figure out the context of the most obscure evidence, find the keystone of a scene as though he'd committed the crime himself. Of course there had been cases that defeated him; there always would be. But if the evidence was there to be found, he would find it.

The trouble with evidence, however, is that it has to connect to something to be of use. Cold cases were often unsolvable not due to a paucity of evidence, but because the evidence didn't link to anything. Fingerprints are of no use if they generate no hits in a database; DNA requires a match of some kind. A surprising number of criminals escaped justice not because they were smart, or careful, but because they simply weren't in the system.

This case, this terrifying, agonizing, supremely personal case, had a metaphorical mountain of evidence, all linking back to Natalie Davis. They could pin all the miniature murders on her now, even if they still didn't quite understand her motivation.

But none of it, not one sample or fiber or scrap of data, told them where she'd taken Sara.

Grissom could not follow where there was no trail.

He could not remember ever feeling so helpless. Not even when Nick had been taken, for there was always something to do, some idea to chase. The race had been against the clock, but even then they had known Nick was still alive.

Now, they had only the miniature's promise that Sara lived. And even that had been dismantled, the motor itself pulled to pieces in Grissom's increasingly desperate search for a hint as to her location. He wondered dully if the battery life was somehow linked to Sara's time to live--he wouldn't put it past Natalie--but it was impossible to tell now.

The truth he didn't want to face was closing in on him, as inexorable and silent as the darkness of his office. Sara might still be alive, somewhere out in the desert and the rain, but the odds fell with every passing minute, and already the searchers were preparing themselves to find a corpse instead of a living woman.

All the skills he took such pride in, the work that for so long had been his _life_--none of it had made a difference, in the end. Sara was gone.

Sara was probably dead.

He would never see her again. Never touch her, kiss her, hear her laugh or speak or yell at him, never curl around her and find peace in sleep.

He hadn't known the true taste of happiness until he'd let her in--the rich sweetness of it on his tongue--the sheer contentment to be found in the simple presence of another human being.

He never would again.

Grissom knew that he should get up and go out, speak to his team, be there for them and allow them to be there for him. After all, they were missing her too, colleague and mentor and friend. He was not alone in grief.

But he just couldn't bring himself to move.

* * *

.

* * *

The rain slacked off not too much later, then stopped as abruptly as it began. Sara sat for a while, her mind dulled with pain and fatigue, but her shivering increased and with each shudder came renewed pain. She forced herself to concentrate.

_Gotta move, Sidle, you can't stay here. _She patted down her pockets, taking inventory. One handlight, still working despite the water and abuse. Her LVPD ID was gone, but her wallet was still in her hip pocket; she didn't bother to try to work it out of the soaked cloth. No gun, no cellphone. _Not that either of those would work now anyway._

One pack of breath mints, now a squashed and sodden mess. Sara shoved them back into her vest pocket, reflex not letting her litter the desert floor, and scraped her soaked and muddy hair back from her face.

She was so tired. She wanted sleep and rest so badly that she could taste it, but along with that taste was an ominous hint of copper on the back of her tongue, and the knowledge that her friends were looking for her.

It took two tries for Sara to get to her feet, and for a moment she wasn't sure she would stay on them, but in the end she balanced. Wrapping her arms around her torso hurt, but then almost any move she made hurt. Turning in a small, unsteady circle, she looked around.

With the handlight off, she could see a little; the faint flashes in the distance as the storm skated away, the shadow of the wrecked car to one side…and the faint glow of the clouds ahead of her. The storm, having rescued her, was offering her a beacon as well. Beneath that spot lay Las Vegas.

Sara made careful note of the direction, then turned her handlight back on and searched for tire tracks. But the rain had washed them away, and all she had to go on was the vague memory of the jolting ride in the trunk.

_Well…I don't remember any turns…_

Hoping that the batteries would last long enough to get her to a road, Sara clicked on her handlight and set out in a limping walk for the glowing horizon.

She had gone about fifty yards when a sudden metallic groan behind her made her freeze. A weak surge of adrenaline pulsed through her before she realized that the sound was coming from the car.

The groan came again, longer, and was washed out by a complex noise that combined the breaking of glass and the sodden squash of mud. Sara held still for a long moment after it stopped, debating whether to turn around and see what had become of her trap.

_I...don't think I want to know._

Taking as deep a breath as she could manage, she went on.

* * *

Dawn came slowly for Sara, so imperceptibly that it took her a while to realize that she could see beyond the little circle of her failing handlight. The clouds had blown away, and the stars were fading overhead as a greyish light spread on the eastern horizon.

She looked up, every muscle aching, and took in what she could. She had been walking in the dark for what seemed like hours, but couldn't have been too many unless she'd slept an entire day in that trunk. The desert looked much the same as the spot she'd left behind; flat and stony, with the occasional bit of scrub.

_Kinda boring, actually._

A flicker in the distance caught her eye, and Sara squinted, trying to get her tired eyes to focus. It looked like…headlights.

Hope surged. They were tiny with distance and moving left to right, but as Sara watched, another gleam passed, going in the opposite direction.

_Gotta be a road. If I'm really lucky, it's a highway._

The lights were at least two miles away, and it took Sara a long time to get there. The ground was flat but stony and rough, and her soaked socks had rubbed blisters on both her feet way before dawn. She was still cold and damp, if no longer dripping wet, and her clothes and hair were stiff with sandy mud.

And despite the release of pressure, her ribs hurt madly.

She had to keep one arm wrapped around them as she walked, and she still couldn't take a deep breath. The analytical portion of her mind knew that she'd probably injured herself further getting out from under the car, but Sara ignored it as best she could and kept putting one foot in front of the other. There was no profit in stopping, she could just as easily perish of exposure within sight of a road; and she feared to halt even for a rest.

She wasn't sure she could start moving again.

By the time she reached the highway--_oh, thank God, it__** is**__ a highway_--the sun was climbing into the sky and she was actually starting to get warm. It was a little hard to see in the increasing glare; her eyes didn't seem to want to work properly without her sunglasses. But she could focus enough to tell when cars were coming.

It went totally against the grain to flag one down. Sara had grown up on tales of the dangers of hitchhiking, and as a CSI she knew the dangers for truth. She had no badge and no gun, only her filthy vest as proof that she worked for the LVPD, and she was in no shape to defend herself.

_But I don't have a phone either, and I really don't think I can make it much further. _

It took her seven tries to get a car to stop. There weren't too many of them at that hour of the morning, and she was getting a little desperate, but finally a battered pickup pulled over onto the shoulder, gravel crunching under its tires.

Sara limped up to it, catching a glimpse of herself in the wing mirror and wincing. _No wonder nobody's stopping. I look like a complete whackjob._

Her hair was a tangled, matted mess; her face was pale where it wasn't scraped and bloody where it was; and she already knew that her clothes looked like she was a walking mudpile. _I don't think I'd stop for me either._

The man behind the wheel wore a white Stetson and an expression that mixed boredom with suspicion. He looked across the seat towards her. "Yeah?"

Sara had to cough to get her voice to work, and damn, it _hurt._ "Las...Las Vegas?"

He stared at her. "You're on the wrong side of the road for that direction, chickie."

Sara blinked. Her exhausted brain hadn't considered that. "Oh. Uh--could--"

Before she could articulate, the man shook his head. "Dumb stoners," he muttered, and revved the engine, almost hitting Sara as he swung the truck back onto the road.

She briefly considered making a rude gesture at his vanishing taillights, then decided that she had better save her energy to cross the highway.

Forty minutes later, she was sitting on a hastily deployed towel in the passenger seat of an eighteen-wheeler, clutching the cellphone of the tough, sturdy woman who drove it. Sara's focus kept slipping, and it took her three tries to punch in the correct number for Grissom's cell.

It went directly to voicemail, though, which made her blink. _Why the hell is it shut off? Oh...maybe he's out of range._ She cleared her throat carefully.

"Uh...Gil...it's, uh, me...I'm okay, I'm on my way into Vegas right now..."

Sara hesitated, realizing that she didn't quite know what to say. She had expected a living voice on the other end.

"Um. I think I kind of need a hospital, so I, I'll try you again later--or call home--sorry..."

Confused, she cut the connection, and managed to dial their home number through blurring eyes. It rang the usual six times and went to voicemail as well, and this time Sara couldn't think of what to say. She closed the phone.

"You okay, hon?" asked the driver, glancing over at her. "Nobody home?"

Sara shook her head, shivering in the truck's air conditioning, worried. _Where is he? Has something--_ "No--is it okay if I..."

The woman snorted. "Go 'head, I've got unlimited minutes."

"Thanks." It was hardly more than a whisper.

Something was wrong, Sara could feel it. Something was wrong and getting more wrong every minute. Moving fingers that felt stiff and shaky both, Sara dialed one more number that she knew by heart.

"Las Vegas Crime Lab, may I help you?"

The voice wasn't quite as perky as usual, but Sara had never been happier to hear it. "Judy...it's Sara...I mean, CSI Sidle..."

The squeak on the other end was almost ear-piercing. _"Sara?!_ Ohmygosh, Sara, you're alive!" A gulp of air. "Where _are_ you? Are you _okay?_"

Funny, Sara thought, how quickly dusk had arrived. It had just been morning, hadn't it? "No...don't think so--"

The word turned into a cough, and another, and suddenly she couldn't _stop_ coughing even though each spasm seemed to tear a hole in her chest. Judy's voice dropped away down into her lap, and she heard the hiss of air brakes and her rescuer's alarmed voice. "Hey, you all right, hon? Whoa! That's not--"

There was something sticky and coppery in her mouth, and she couldn't _breathe._ The big vehicle lurched and began to slow, but Sara felt her eyes closing.

* * *

.

* * *

Grissom didn't want to wake up. He hovered just under the surface of consciousness, knowing that something dreadful waited in the waking world; pain and intolerable grief. For a while he managed it, hearing vague sounds of shouting and banging and then drifting off again, but the sudden sharp burr of his desk phone jerked him awake and he lifted his head.

The movement made him grunt. He'd been sleeping with his arms and head pillowed on his desk, and his back was stiff and his neck ached. Regarding his phone with bleary disfavor, he waited until it had stopped ringing, then rubbed his face with both hands.

It wasn't the first time he'd fallen asleep in his office, but it was the first time for such a reason. The tears had come on him unexpectedly; not since he was fourteen had he cried like that, a flood of unreasoning misery that had torn sobs from his throat and eventually left him to fall into the blank oblivion of heavy sleep.

It had been one phone call. Just one, Jim's voice flat with suppressed emotion, taking refuge in cold facts.

"_Gil." _

_He knew it was bad news. Somehow, he'd known before he even picked up the phone. "Tell me." _

"_S&R found the car." He could hear Jim swallow. "It's half-sunk in a mudpit full of water. They'll have to get a crane out here to lift it, but it's, uh, it's...the right car. Down to every detail." _

_Which meant, Jim was carefully not saying, that Sara was underneath it. _

_In the mud. _

_Dead. _

_He really was too late. _

"_Thank you, Jim," he said, or tried to; he wasn't sure the words made it out of his mouth before he hung up the phone. _

He'd shut off his cellphone in absent precision, planning to walk out of the building and go...somewhere, but the weeping had taken him almost before he set the phone down, and he had given up thought in hopeless mourning.

The voices came again, loud and excited in the hallway, and a small and irrational fury stirred under his breastbone. _Why are you making noise?_ he wanted to shout. _Sara's dead and nothing will ever be good again. Be quiet!_

"No?" someone said loudly outside his door--Nick. "You sure? Okay--"

Grissom gritted his teeth at the pounding knock, and gave no response. He would wait until they gave up, and then he would call Brass and find out if they'd lifted that car yet--

"_Grissom! _Open the door, man!" More pounding. "Ah, the hell with it--"

The kick that broke his door in was powerful and precise, and the window only cracked instead of shattering as the door slammed open and whacked against the wall. Nick stood in the doorway, eyes wide and wild, and with him stood Judy, her cheeks flushed and her mouth trembling.

Nick dove into the room before Grissom's grief-dazed brain could come up with the words to make him leave, trailing Judy behind him by one wrist like a triumphal, if somewhat fluffy, banner. "Grissom! Man, we've been looking for you--come _on,_ we have to go--"

He reached across the desk and grabbed Grissom's arm, tugging hard, and Grissom found himself stumbling towards the doorway. As Nick pulled him through, Grissom slammed his free hand against the jamb and halted.

"Would you care to explain what is going on?" he demanded, the fury growing; he knew it was petty and unreasonable, but it was a good distraction from the black grief.

Nick rolled his eyes. "Tell him, sugar, or we'll never get out of here."

Judy gave him a tremulous smile, but a real one. "Dr. Grissom, sir, Sara called, she's alive! She called from a truck somewhere and--"

The rest of her words were lost under the buzzing hum that filled Grissom's ears, and he found himself leaning against the doorjamb and watching Judy's lips move, the way the corners kept turning up with an excited joy. He couldn't make out all the words, but--

"_...not really sure what happened, but the driver said she was calling an am... and everybody's ..." _

Sound came back with a rush as Nick's hand slipped under Grissom's elbow. "Hey, Griss, you okay?"

His feet were moving before he actually commanded them. "Which hospital?"

"University. Come on--" As they started hurrying towards the doors, Nick's cellphone rang, and he pulled Judy into his place at Grissom's side as he answered it. "Yeah, Jim, we got him, we're on our way--"

So it was that Grissom found himself all but running out into the brilliant sun of morning, his arm hooked through Judy's, Nick already digging his keys out of his pocket, and something light and heady and unbearably sweet was running through his veins in place of blood, and all he could see was Sara's smile.

_Oh, honey, I'm coming._

**See Chapter 4**


	4. Chapter 4

**Most of the characters and situations in this story belong to Alliance Atlantis, CBS, Anthony Zuicker and other entities, and I do not have permission to borrow them. No infringement is intended in any way, and this story is not for profit. All other characters are my invention, and if you want to mess with them, you have to ask me first. Any errors are mine, all mine, no you can't have any.**

**Spoilers: through "Living Doll"**

**Many, many thanks to my patient beta Cincoflex, who has been enthusiastically cheering me on while keeping me on the straight and narrow! Couldn't do it without you, dearest. **

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

The group gathered at University Hospital didn't know whether to rejoice or fear. Nervous CSIs milled around the lounge taken over by Sara Sidle's visitors, while techs clumped and whispered and a couple of detectives held up one wall and said nothing to anyone.

Jim Brass blew in with Greg in tow, the captain looking as though he'd been wrestling with angels. Greg's wide and goofy grin kept fading as he remembered why everyone was there, but then it would reappear as soon as his attention slipped.

At one end of the room, Catherine spoke quietly with the trucker who had picked Sara up on the highway. The woman still looked a little shell-shocked, but her quick thinking and radio had brought in a MedEvac helicopter to lift the hemorrhaging Sara to the ER. Now she waited with the rest of them to find out what would happen.

Catherine was poised as she asked low-voiced questions, trying to fill in missing details about Sara's ordeal, but if one looked closely one could see the smudges of black around her eyes, smudges she had not yet taken the time to wipe away.

Standing in the doorway, observing, Grissom reflected that those smudges probably said more about Catherine's relationship with Sara than any of her words. The two women weren't friends, no.

But that didn't mean Catherine didn't care.

The tense group hadn't noticed him yet; he'd been talking to doctors and admissions nurses for the last forty minutes, and Grissom was grateful for a last few moments of peace before having to face them all.

He was still a little dizzy with the events of recent hours. Sara missing--Sara _dead_--miraculously alive--now, in surgery. His stomach was still a churning mix of fear and wild joy, and the fact that he still had not _seen_ Sara was driving him half-mad.

The quiet approach of someone behind his left shoulder made Grissom turn. Warrick stopped next to him, holding out a paper cup of hospital coffee. "You okay?"

Grissom took the cup and lifted it in thanks. "I'm...holding on."

Warrick nodded and took a sip from the cup in his other hand, looking beyond into the waiting room. Nick had an arm around Judy's shoulders, singing her praises to Brass for managing to track Sara through her phone call; Judy was blushing furiously but, interestingly, making no move to get out of the circle of Nick's embrace.

"Better get in there and let them know before they come looking for you," Warrick said, a tired amusement lacing his tone. "Some of 'em will have to go soon anyway."

"True." Grissom kept forgetting that beyond this tense gathering the lab had business to conduct and crimes to solve. In fact, only the alarm on his phone had reminded him to call a neighbor to feed Bruno, waiting patiently at home.

Sighing, he stepped into the room. All eyes turned his way, and conversations stopped.

"She's still in surgery," Grissom told them. "But the doctors say that she's out of immediate danger."

The susurrus of relief was followed by a chatter of questions, but Grissom held up his free hand and they quieted. "Sara sustained some cracked and broken ribs, and some internal bleeding; she was in shock from exposure and bleeding, and was in the early stages of pneumonia. They think they have everything under control for now."

The smiles turned thoughtful; Grissom couldn't bring himself to say it, but it was clear that they understood the unspoken caveat. No surgery was without risk, and Sara could still take a turn for the worse.

But…she was safe. Alive. Back with them.

Grissom braced himself for more questions, but thankfully no one seemed to need further reassurance; they broke up into little groups to chat, and two of the detectives took their leave. Grissom circled the room until he reached the bank of chairs where Robbins was sitting, and eased himself down with a sigh.

"I'd ask you how you're holding up, but it seems fairly obvious," Robbins said sympathetically.

Grissom nodded, and took another swallow of coffee. It was pretty bad stuff, but better than nothing, and he wasn't about to leave the hospital in search of something more palatable.

"I find it telling that no one questioned my status as Sara's emergency contact," he said dryly.

Robbins snorted. "Sorry, Gil, but whatever expectation of privacy you two had is now blown to hell. Rumor was running rampant around the lab all last night, and this morning's events only put fuel on the fire."

Grissom shrugged, and leaned forward to balance his elbows on his knees, cup held in both hands. "I think…it was a secret past its time anyway."

He supposed that he should feel more upset about his relationship with Sara becoming public knowledge, but at the moment he simply didn't have the time to spare to worry about it. Sara herself was far more important; anything else could be dealt with later.

_When she's better._

He held onto the thought stubbornly, refusing to dwell on any alternative.

Robbins, thankfully, let him sit without requiring further discussion. As Grissom finished his coffee, he realized that half the population of the room had left, presumably to return to work or home; most of those remaining were nightshift personnel. The atmosphere was much like that of Brass' hospitalization, an air of waiting for news or at least a glimpse of the patient.

"Dr. Grissom?"

He looked up. Coming through the doorway was a woman in scrubs, looking around. Various people pointed in Grissom's direction as he stood, and the doctor came in.

"I'm Dr. Sergio." She extended a hand, and Grissom shook it, aware that the others were gathering around. "Ms. Sidle is out of surgery and doing well so far."

Greg whooped, overrunning the other exclamations of relief and making several people laugh. Catherine reached up and smacked him on the back of the head, but she was grinning as she did it.

Dr. Sergio smiled and went on. "She's stable, but we're going to be keeping her in the ICU for a while, which means only one visitor at a time. We catch you sneaking in extra people, everyone gets thrown out." She sent a stern glare around the group.

"She'll be settled in a bed in about fifteen minutes, and after that she can have her first visitor…"

Grissom didn't hear the rest; he was already out the door.

The ICU at University wasn't set up like the one Jim had inhabited a year previously; instead, patients were housed in semi-private pods spoking off from a central nurses' station. Grissom was made to wait, and he did so grudgingly, planting himself next to the station instead of taking a decorous seat in the hallway.

Finally one of the nurses waved him in. The pod held two beds and their accompanying paraphernalia, but only the near one was occupied.

Grissom didn't remember walking from the curtain to the bed; all his eyes could see was Sara's face, bone-white against the whiter pillowcase, brows and lashes dark slashes but her lips almost as colorless as her skin. A gauze pad covered one cheek, and while a blanket was drawn up over her chest, her bandaged arms lay outside it for the IV line.

He sat without checking to see if the chair was actually there, and for a moment could do nothing but stare, making sure that the slow rise and fall of Sara's chest was real.

His hand was shaking with a fine tremor when he reached out for hers. The long, strong fingers were surprisingly cold, and Grissom enveloped her hand in both of his, rubbing gently to try to transfer some warmth into it. The skin under his fingertips was rough, and he tore his eyes away from her face long enough to look down.

Her fingers were scraped and scratched, the nails split in places and still dark with grime though her hands had been cleaned. Grissom counted one bruise on the back of her hand and two more on her wrist, and wondered fearfully how she had got them.

"Sara," he whispered. "Sara."

He lifted her palm to his mouth and held it there, and this time when his eyes overflowed, there was no despair.

* * *

.

* * *

Sara always thought of anesthesia as a sort of tide. First it rose to drown her, then gradually washed her ashore in gentle waves, advancing and retreating. Each wave brought her further up the sand, and she let them rock her to and fro, listening to sound fade in and out, drifting on the water of sleep.

When the final wave left her, the sounds came clear--a soft beeping, and voices. Her eyelids were too heavy to open just yet, so she lay still and savored the voices, because one of them was Gil's.

_I made it._

_I made it back, and he's okay. _

_He's okay..._

"She's doing fine," said a strange female voice, low and confident. "Her vitals are strong; she's just taking a while to come out of it. Relax, Dr. Grissom. From what you tell me, she should be exhausted; let her sleep."

The woman--a doctor?--was amused, but Grissom's quiet response was anything but.

"She's been out of surgery for almost two hours. This can't be normal."

Sara realized as sensation returned that she felt vaguely unwell, and that her right hand was enveloped in a warm, gentle grip.

Gil's hand.

She would know that touch anywhere.

"Relax," the woman repeated firmly. "Positive energy only, Dr. Grissom, or you'll have to leave. I'll be back in a while to check on her."

There were no footsteps moving away, but Sara heard Grissom's sigh and the rustle of cloth as he shifted. Blearily amused, Sara felt her lips curve in a small smile, and she curled her fingers slowly around his.

He drew in a breath, and his grip tightened. "Sara...sweetheart, are you awake?"

She managed to get her eyes open, though the light made her blink. "Mmph."

A touch hardly stronger than a breeze stroked her uninjured cheek. Grissom was right there, his eyes brilliant in the soft light. "Sara," he repeated, and it was a prayer and a thanksgiving.

She smiled wider. "You're all right," she tried to say, but her mouth was a dry and nasty mess and her throat not much better.

Grissom winced, and let her go to turn to the little table next to the bed. A fumbling second later he turned back with a glass and a bendy straw, and slid a hand behind her head to help her lift it.

The water was warm and scant, but it did clear some of the yuck. Sara let him lower her head back down and blinked up at him. "You--uh--you're okay."

Grissom's brows drew together in fleeting confusion as he recaptured her willing hand. "I'm fine, sweetheart. You--how do you feel?"

It was like thinking through ballistics gel, but Sara tried to take inventory. Given how she'd felt just before she passed out, it was logical to assume that she was on some serious drugs now, which would explain a lot.

"My ribs hurt," she said at last. "Everything hurts, but not bad."

Grissom nodded, his thumb stroking over her knuckles. "You had to have surgery to repair some internal bleeding," he said carefully. "But the doctor says you're going to be fine."

Sara nodded. She knew there was a lot that had to be said, about the woman who abducted her and what had happened afterwards, but she couldn't find the energy just now, and anyway Grissom didn't seem concerned about it. He just kept looking at her as though he couldn't get enough.

The waves were coming back for her, but she wasn't afraid. "You'll be here?" she asked, her voice slurring.

Grissom lifted her hand to his cheek. "Always," he said, in the deep tone he kept only for her.

She smiled again, and let her fingers curl against his skin.

* * *

.

* * *

"Yeah, that's her." Sara stared through the glass at the still figure in the chair. Whatever power Natalie had possessed was fled, leaving a slight figure who stared at nothing and occasionally hummed a soft bar of song. Sara felt no dread watching her, only distaste and an uneasy sort of pity.

Behind her, Grissom's hands tightened on her shoulders. Until her incision healed, he was barred from his favored embrace of his arms around her waist, but he was not willing to let her go through this alone or untouched.

Brass, on Sara's right, sighed without satisfaction. "That's it, then. Kidnapping and attempted murder on top of the other charges."

"She'll plead insanity, or her attorney will," Grissom said, his tone observational. Brass shrugged.

"This is one of the times where I think it's a real defense. Doesn't matter though, either way she's never getting out again."

Sara was only half-listening, her attention taken up by the young woman behind the reinforced door. Natalie looked too slender and unassuming to have done all she had, but Sara knew as well as anyone how much strength could lie behind a harmless façade, even without her recent first-hand experience. For the thousandth time she wondered just what had driven Natalie over the edge; even with the full story from Grissom and Catherine it was by no means clear.

_Are some people just born bad?_ It was a question they had all asked at some point in their work. Usually they hoped it wasn't true, that everyone had an opportunity for some kind of redemption. But what had moved a small girl to push her own sister out of a treehouse? Did she even mean to kill her?

Judging from Natalie's unresponsiveness, she would not be providing answers any time soon. Sara wasn't entirely sure that she herself _wanted_ an answer.

_I probably won't like it._

"Sara?" Grissom asked softly, and she blinked, breaking her stare through the glass. Brass was halfway down the hospital corridor, cellphone already held to his ear.

"Sorry," she answered, and reached up to touch one of his hands. "I kind of zoned out there for a minute."

"You're entitled," Grissom said, and she turned in time to catch his expression; not quite regret, more a rueful acknowledgment of the world's flaws. "Are you ready to go?"

"Definitely." Sara didn't look back at Natalie. There was nothing more for her to see in the broken woman, and Sara was determined to not let her ordeal rule her life. "Let's get out of here."

Grissom wrapped his hand around hers as they walked away. He couldn't seem to keep from touching her, these days, and Sara had noticed that the hesitancy that had sometimes come upon him in the past had vanished, leaving a renewed intensity in its wake. She might have expected to find his deepened attention irritating, but instead she found herself basking in it.

Maybe winning free of Natalie's trap _had_ been a rebirth of sorts.

For both of them.

"Greg told me to ask you when you're coming back," Grissom said, with tolerant amusement. "Again."

Sara snorted, and tightened her grip on his fingers, concentrating on the feel of his warm skin rather than the oppressive atmosphere of the psychiatric hospital. "As soon as my overprotective boss lets me."

She didn't look, but she knew he was pursing his lips against a smile. "Stitches out first."

Her huff was more formality than real protest. In the past, she might have gone back to work as soon as she could make it through a shift, but now she had more to look forward to than another worknight.

Much more.

For now, she was content to wait until she could bend over without hurting. Grissom had taken a week off to look after her, but now he was back at the lab, and Sara found a curious pleasure in spending her night quietly and waiting for him to come home.

_It'd bore me stupid after a month, _she admitted privately, _but for the moment..._

It wasn't as though she didn't have plenty to do, anyway. There were articles to catch up on, and the paper she was writing for the APF journal, and the occasional nap on the big bed that smelled like her lover even when he was gone.

And soon she _would_ be back at work. Greg wasn't the only impatient one, after all.

They signed out of the hospital and emerged into the bright sun of afternoon. Grissom slipped on his sunglasses with his free hand, but didn't release hers. "Let's go home."

There was survival, and there was living. At last, she was alive.

**End.**


End file.
